Remembering Early Telecommunications
Oral Histories
PS-Paul Shaw is the interviewer and author of. They Said in Salisbury is available from the Salisbury Historical Society and on view at the Salisbury Free Library.
Fred L Adams born 1911
Excerpts from an Interview by Paul S. Shaw, MD. re: Telecommunications
Date Feb 1989
Place: Fred’s house, North Road Salisbury
Published in They Said It In Salisbury by Paul S. Shaw, MD pgs 5-6
PS- Your Dad was involved with the telephone company, in the formation. Can you tell me something about that?
F- My Dad didn’t come here till about 1909, somewhere around there. He had been in a New York in a brokerage firm working there. He was and an accountant. He and mother were married and lived in New Jersey for a year and a half, and then came back here. He took over the telephone company at that time.
PS-Your mother’s father was one of the directors?
F- Yes. he took over management of the company. That was located where Fred Richardson lives now. (note-this is house #1 a the crossroad of rte 127&rte 4 NE corner)
PS- Yes, I have of tape of Liza Buzzell’s description of geing the first operator.
F- I would say she probably was over in the old store across the road but I wouldn’t swear to this. Eventually in was in the Richardson’s house, the front room of the house on the corner, the room next to the driveway in the front.
PS- How complicated a system did you have in those days?
F- It wasn’t very complicated, just a pair of wires running here and there. Eighteen people on one line or more, sometimes up to twenty. There were two toll circuits going into Franklin then, later there eight or nine. There there was a circuit into Penacoock and one into Concord.
PS- Any interesting stories about the company in your fathers day?
F- The most interesting was the storms. They could be snow or hurricanes. They’d blow the stuff down and you have’d to go up and work like hell.
PS- When you got through school you went to work with the telephone company?
F-Yes
PS- How big a crew did you have and what part of the telephone lines did you cover?
F- Well, were into Wilmot, Andover, Danbury, East Andover, Salisbury, Webster, Boscawen and into the edge of Franklin
PS- How big a crew?
F- In the wintertime, two and that wasn’t full time either. In the summertime we’d have three or four especially if we were putting in a line, setting poles and running new wires. As the company grew we had to keep putting up cross arms and wires on the poles, so there were five pairs of wires on each cross arm. At one time going between the Crossroads and the Heights there were four ten-pin cross arms on the poles, so there were five pair of wires on each cross arm. Also, the first cables we had there were just a few short pieces around the village here, because we had so many wires going out we didn’t know what to do with them.
PS-The people that don’t remember the old days before cables can’t get a picture of wha the world would be today if we had separate pair of wires for every telephone.
F-Oh my God! It would be impossible, you just can’t do it. I know today (note: 1989), especially in New London the they have condominiums they are putting in two pairs of wires for each unit. And that isn’t enough. One fellow up there recently wanted four or five lines for one unit.
pg 8-
PS. How about natural catastrophes such as hurricanes, or anything like that. Anything unusual happen with the telephone Company?
F-Yes. The 1938 Hurricane kicked out most of the equipment we had outside those were all single wires in those days. It took three weeks before we got the last telephone working and that’s working from daylight until dark. We stayed in Andover and worked as long as we could see, and took off the next morning just as soon as there was light enough for us to see. Then we’ve had a lot of heavy snowstorms that have taken a lot of stuff down I can’t tell you the years or when.
Oral Histories
Liza Buzzell b. 1887 and worked at theTelephone office by 1901.
Excerpts from an Interview by Paul S. Shaw, MD. and Joy Chamberlain Re: Telecommunications
Date Dec. 6, 1988
Place: New London Nursing Center
Published in They Said It In Salisbury by Paul S. Shaw, MD
p 45-46
L- I went to work for the telephone company when I was fourteen. I got a dollar and a half a week, and if I had half a day off a month I was lucky. And I got paid when they went collecting. When I got trough I was getting five dollars.
PS- Was the telephone office right here in the house? (note: House #1 NE Crossroads of rte 127 & rte 4 referred to as the Richardson house by Fred Adams)
L- The office first was in the back of Little’s Store. that was across the street. They had a back room.
PS- Was that beside the church?
L- No, it was across the street, where the Crossroads Store is now. Chapman’s hotel was next. There were four buildings there. And the Grand Army got the building and fixed it up, made a dance hall, a dining room and a check room.-everything it was lovely. And up in the attic a fire started . etc (note: This area was devastated by a fire and the buildings burned in 1894)
page 50-52 Excerpts
PS- Tell us about the Telephone Company:
L- John Little was the manager, and tom Little the general manger. W.W, Burbank was president and lived in Webster….(etc. see p.50 They Said It in Salisbury.)
PS- Who else worked there?
L- Etta Holmes, and she was Etta Taylor, she married Fred Taylor. Viral Taylor she just died she worked there. George Fellow’s wife worked there. I think those were the (ones). I liked the telephone company work. I wish I had stayed with it.
PS- You say you had to crank the thing to make it ring?
L- Oh, yes. You had to crank the phone, and in the switchboard you had to turn that- alarm at night. And then they brought the thing to ring with batteries…(etc.)
PS- You had several people on each line and you had a different rings for different people?
L- Yes. long rings and short. They’d ring each other and there’d be four or five talking. It was a party line. Ha! Ha! You’d have go in and ask for the line.
PS- Was there a tea room in the telephone office?
L-??? No there was one across the street in the store. (note: Another building existed between her house and the church thats was called The Red Tea House for a time after around 1938).
L- They moved the telephone office to the front room in our house, in my room. That’s where it was last. Now they don’t have a telephone office. (note: Update-There is currently a Kearsarge Telephone Company building located a short distance away on rte 4)
PS- Fred Adams’ father, Bert, was pretty active in the telephone company wasn’t he?
His mother was a Little.
L- Yes. Carrie Little, Tom Little’s daughter. Ralph Little and George were in the telephone office when I was, and Tom Little was general manger.